"Just because we are all women, we
American-style women's movement. Despite the growth of groups and institutions that "deal" with women, the word "feminism" has until recently been carefully avoided in meetings. If some "personalities" have declared themselves feminist they have always done so as individuals, are not all equal"
and more in reference to a personal evolution than to the analyses of the liberation movements in the "developed" countries.
Indeed, that on which "they are all agreed" is to reject these analyses because
SINCE THE 1952 revolution, Bolivian women have been part of all the struggles, often creating their own organizations. In the past few years these organizations have sprung up in every sector, from the peasants to domestic workers.
Has this been due to repercussions from the Western feminist movements? Or to the money which has been flowing in for women's organizations in Latin America since 1975? A bit of both. But above all it is a consequence of the unprecedented economic crisis that has squeezed Latin America — with women naturally being the most affected.1
Lastly, it is due to the reaction of a society where the role of women is not at all similar to countries where movements for women's liberation have been established for the last 20 years.
CÉCILE MARQUET
UST BECAUSE we are all all women, we are not equal....In Bolivia, there are three classes of women: upper class, middle class and lower class. Peas-
"Upper-class women live in luxurious houses, and they have their maids, nannies, cooks, servants for washing their floors and even their toilets. These women spend their money in beauty parlours. They tint their hair and paint their nails, mouth and even their eyes. Clowns is a word that springs to
"Middle-class women also live in nice houses and go to hairdressers, but less often than the others; some of them have jobs. But they are all agreed on one thing:
that is their contempt for peasant women.
They treat them all as if they were their maids..."?
That was a campesina talking, a "peasant" — a word in reality that is synonymous with Indian in the Andean countries.
It is used most frequently to avoid saying
"Indian", which has many derogatory connotations in these countries. She explains, with perfect clarity, how the "women's question" is raised in a country like
20
Bolivia.
Radical feminism has not succeeded in
International Viewpoint • February 22, 1988 crossing the foothills of the Andes. Imagine the reception that some naive gringa would have had in the good old days of "Women's Lib", coming to preach "sisterhood" in the Bolivian highlands. Perhaps it's because of the altitude, but in Bolivia one is obliged to weigh up a certain number of ideas and ask if it is worth taking them up to such heights. No American- or Europeanstyle women's movement
In this country it is difficult to claim that all women are sisters. It is a tricky business bringing up the double work-day in meetings where half of the room precisely avoids this burden by giving it to the other half, thereby gaining the freedom to devote their time to...the struggle for their common liberation! It is risky to go back to origins because all along the way, in their history and mythology, there are men and women, the masculine and feminine. They seem indissociable, bound together since the creation of the world.
So it is not surprising that Bolivia is one of the rare countries in Latin America that, over the past 15 years, has not even seen the beginnings of a European- or North they do not correspond to Bolivian reality. "Bolivian feminism must reformulate its demands without plagiarizing or copying those of feminist movements abroad." 3
It was only on August 8, 1986, that the Women's Coordination called a public meeting for the first time on the theme of feminism. But Bolivian women certainly did not wait until then to get involved in struggles. Domitila's book publicized the courage of Bolivian women to the whole world.
Long tradition of women's organizations
But what is not generally known is that there is a long tradition of autonomous women's organizations in this country. They can be traced back to the 1920s with the Women Workers' Federation, to the 1952 revolution and, now, to the organizations of housewives, women in the mines, peasants, domestic servants and so on.
Bolivia seems at the same time to be a country where a feminist movement strictly speaking has never existed, and where women's movements are undoubtedly very numerous and very active. It is this contradiction that one of the participants to the August 8 meeting underlined: "I maintain that there was and is an important women's movement, a massive movement, which differentiates us from all the other Latin American countries. But these massive movements have never raised demands around the specific subordination and oppression of women." S
The problem is that at present a feminist analysis of these "massive movements" does not exist, for the good reason that they are solely composed of women from the "lower class", while women who lay claim to feminism and could elaborate this sort of analysis belong to the middle class and, as such, are completely outside these movements. So it is very difficult to assess what happens inside these mass organizations, and to what extent they raise women's consciousness. 1. For a general picture of the situation of women in Latin America, see "Feminism to the tune of the cumbia..." by Heather Dashner in International Marxist Review, Vol.2, No.4, Winter 1987. 2. Las Hijas de Bartolina Sisa, Hisbol, La Paz, 1984. 3. Feminismo y politica, Coordinadora de la Mujer, La Paz, 1986. 4. Si on me donne la parole, Domitila, Maspero, Paris, 1987. 5. Feminismo, op.cit.
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BOLIVIA
However, some testimonies on this subject have presumed that there is little difference between these organizations and any other autonomous women's organization, whether or not they declare themselves feminist. For example, here is what was said — not by a gringa feminist in the 1970s - but by a Bolivian woman, Bartolina Sisa, from the Federation Peasants:
"In a meeting with men, we cannot speak properly: men are always louder and we are afraid to talk in meetings where they are present. But when we meet as women we have good discussions, we are not afraid to throw out ideas, we understand quicker with less talk, and we also discuss women's problems that cannot be raised when men are there. Now that we know what we would lose if we went back to mixed meetings, we are going to struggle to keep this gain". 6
The situation in Bolivia could therefore be summed up as follows: on the one hand, we have numerous and combative mass organizations, and on the other hand institutions where middle-class women work who "support" these organizations. The former are generally anti-feminist, and the second raise problems in completely different terms from the first. It is therefore difficult to see how they could co-exist in a movement similar to those that arose 20 years ago. The gap between the two seems very difficult to overcome, as shown by the clear and violent statement of another woman from the peasant federation:
Striking new awakening of Indian women
"We were invited to a seminar on women organized by bourgeois ladies. I didn't see any 'housewives' (from the housewives' federation of the popular neighbourhoods of La Paz), nor women working in the mines, and still less industrial workers.... On the third day, a bloke talked about the situation of women in the rural milieu. He just said one stupid thing after another....
"You should don't expect anything from institutions that just take our name and make money on our backs. If it live? What monyou be able to go appear on the
TV? Don't you get all that from us? From our political surplus value? Do you by chance produce anything? You don't produce ly. We produce;
we feed you. You want to recognize that we're your equals, that we rights, that we are
"If you want to work with us, be in solidarity with peasant women, come and work in the countryside. We won't push you away, but we won't go looking for you like we did before. We're no longer the peasant women of 1952. We're the peasant women
The most striking new political fact in the
Andean countries is certainly the awakening of the Indians, which is particularly obvious in Bolivia. On May 1, the brilliant red of the polleras (skirts) and ponchos temporarily reconquers the streets. Discussion wells up, from seminars to meetings, and it is difficult to go around the cultural reality of the Andes. Discussion is lively among
BOLIVIA women. Indian women reject feminism with the following argument:
"As far as the Andean model is concerned, we think that Western feminism is not applicable. In Europe and in the USA, women are in competition with men in waged work, while here the immense majority of the population is not wage-
"What is more, the cultural tradition is not competition, but mutual aid. In the West, there can only be one single system of values — that of men. Women, in order to liberate themselves, try to do what men do in a system based on competition, where there must always be one who is above the
In the Andean world the allocation of roles means that men and women benefit from an equal respect."8
Complementarity - the key word of the Aymara world, which excludes the possibility of women's oppression by men because neither can exist nor play a role in the community without the other. (In order to be considered as a "person", and to be given responsibilities, for example, one has to
Middle-class non-Indian feminists obviously challenge this analysis of women's situation in the Andes. The discussion is just beginning. * 6. Las Hijas, op.cit. 7 Las Hijas, op.cit. 8. La Mujer en el Mundo Andino, Ediciones Chitakol- 21 la, La Paz, 1986. February 22, 1988 • International Viewpoint
Equality remains a snare for some and
FRANCE
W OULDN'T it be normal to